Report from the Select Committee on Contagious Fever in London / ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed, 20 May 1818.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Contagious Fever in London.
- Date:
- [1818?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report from the Select Committee on Contagious Fever in London / ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed, 20 May 1818. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.
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![better claim to admittance, than any poor person who knocks at your door, and asks for admission, complying with the rules of your establishment ?—Not at all. I have rather given the preference to the poor persons, when they have applied. One of the principal rules is, for the inspector to attend to certain regulations respecting the cleansing of infected apartments, and for purifying or destroying, and replacing infected clothing and bedding ; does your inspector do ail this ?—I think it is a great desideratum in our establishment, if we had funds to supply clothes and bedding. With respect to whitewashing, fumigating, and general cleansing, the inspector does all that he can, and he leaves a paper, which contains printed rules, to be observed in houses where contagion exists. Is it your custom to limit the admission of patients to certain days ?—At all the general hospitals, patients are admitted only once a week, with the exception of accidents. In the House of Recovery you admit them immediately ?—Immediately. Do you happen to know whether there are any pains taken at hospitals with regard to fumigating and cleansing the habitations of the persons removed ?— Certainly not; they pay no attention to the external circumstances. Is it not probable, in case of typhus fever, that any delay might be fatal to the patient ?—It is extremely dangerous, and is one of the causes of the greater mortality of fever in the great hospitals in London, and even in the fever hospital itself. Can you give the Committee any account as to the mortality arising from fever some years back in the metropolis, whether it was not considerably greater than within those two years of epidemic ?—I have no other knowledge of this subject than is to be obtained from the bills of mortality. Do you bear in mind what the difference is ?—No, I do not. Something very considerable ?—Something very considerable ; in the last year in our establishment the mortality was one case in twelve and a half. Under whose direction is your establishment ?—Under the immediate direction of a general committee of subscribers, and of two directors, who are elected monthly out of their body. Do they inspect the hospital occasionally ?—I believe they do ; but their duty relates principally to the domestic management of the hospital. What do you mean by domestic management ?—The supply of necessaries, such as clothing, bedding and washing, paying the servants, and so on. Is there any one that attends to see that the different persons connected with the establishment perform their respective duties?—That is the business of the directors. Is that attendance regular and constant ?—It is constant, but not regular ; that is to say, not at fixed hours. Do you attend yourself daily ?—Yes, daily. And of course, in difficult cases, more than once ?—I never attended more than once; the apothecary attends in the after-part of the day. I never attend more than once. But you make it a part of your duty, which is punctually performed, and see all the patients daily ?—Yes, most punctually. Is not the mortality of one in twelve considerably more than may be taken as an ordinary average ?—It is not more than the ordinary average that has been observed in the hospitals of this country, but it is considerably more than the average that is stated of the fever hospitals in Ireland; which I believe to arise from the circum- stance of the great number of very aged paupers which have been sent in from the workhouses here in a dying state j and from the circumstance that, in Ireland, very slight cases are sent in immediately, in consequence of the very great alarm; in general the cases are sent in earlier in Ireland than in this country. Have you sufficient conveniences in your establishment for convalescent patients ? —No, we certainly want accommodation for convalescents. The Committee see in the Returns, that the mortality in 1815 was one in nine, and in 1816 it was one in six; is not the comparative mortality less in a year of epidemic than in ordinary years ?—It is always so, and I believe chiefly in conse- quence of the circumstance that, where no epidemic prevails, it is only the very bad cases that are sent to the hospital. With the permission of the Committee, I would wish to annex to my evidence the Sixteenth Report of the Institution for the Cure and Prevention of Contagious Fevers. [_It was read, as follows ;] Sixteenth](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2130001x_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
